If People Will Put Up With This You Think a Wall Will Stop Them? Really?

Another good NY Times article today on how difficult illegal immigrants already find it. I'm really left baffled as to how anyone can think that we can make the border hard enough to cross to have any big effect. Sure, the Soviet Union did it in Berlin but couldn't entirely along the rest of the Eastern Bloc's borders and even the North Korean border is a little leaky. Unless we want to pull all the US troops back full time to police the border, as if we were the Roman Empire or Ming China, we're not going to succeed in making the border hard enough to cross to make a huge difference.

I doubt we could even make it as hard as it is for illegal immigrants to get to Europe, which still has several hundred thousand illegals entering a year, exact statistics were harder to find on Europe than the US so I couldn't get better numbers.

Even for the US however, Mexico is only the origin for 50 some percent. While I'm sure some will take the view that numbers from China or India are bearable and its this 50 some percent we have to cut back on, does anyone really think we can make it as hard to get here from Mexico as it is from China? That's a really tall order. The exact statistics, a bit date admittedly are below. These figures are from this report from DHS. For most of the countries outside North America these immigrants still have other options meaning that many more would likely be coming here if America were as obvious a choice for them. If people are willing to go through this much effort to cross much more significant barriers than we can erect why does anyone continue to believe enforcement is a real option?